After the Steps
by Dunnage41
Summary: After Henry helps Jo process Sean's death, it's Henry's turn to be vulnerable.


The silence was comfortable and the coffee laced with whiskey was warming; after a few minutes, though, Jo stretched her legs out and realized how stiff and cold she was.

She stood up and held the door open. "Come on in," she said. "No sense us freezing out here."

Without hesitation, Henry rose and followed her in. "Thank you," he said, and helped her off with her coat. Jo's lips twitched. Henry was so automatically a gentleman she doubted he could refrain from such gestures.

She sank down in a corner of the sofa and watched him sit, comfortably but very straight, in Sean's wing chair.

Time for a change of subject.

"So back in Paul's apartment … after you made him throw up and saved his life … you said you left a practice that involved … y'know, live patients … and turned to pathology."

Henry nodded, swirling brandy in his snifter.

"Why was it time for a change?"

Henry's eyes dulled. Jo could tell he'd gone inside himself the way he did. Vividly Henry remembered the grit of the parking lot as he knelt beside the man with the gunshot wound… the sudden hot pain of being shot himself… the agony he'd felt in those few brief seconds when he had to make a choice… he heard his own voice crying out, "I'm so sorry," as he crawled away to hide – and die – beside a car.

Henry cleared his throat and swallowed a mouthful of brandy.

"I was … in the hospital parking lot, after being called in for an emergency," he began slowly. He was feeling his way through a dark corridor with no helpful light in sight. He was far too accustomed to keeping his secret to let it spill out carelessly, but he'd never discussed that afternoon with anyone except Abigail.

"I heard an argument. Two men arguing about a … a wager," he said. "One of them pulled out a gun and shot the other one. I … went over there…"

"Henry, you headed toward a gunfight?" Jo interrupted him. "You really don't have any self-preservation instincts, do you?" She shook her head, smiling.

"My only thought was the wounded man," Henry said, a trace of defensiveness raising the pitch of his voice, if not the volume. "I went down beside him to apply pressure. The man with the gun told me to get out of there – I said I was a doctor, and he said, 'You're a witness.' Then…"

"He shot you," Jo finished. Henry nodded.

"That scar on your chest."

It wasn't from being shot – well, it was; it just wasn't from being shot in 1956. It was from being shot in 1814. But Henry wasn't about to tell Jo Martinez that. He let the silence lie for him.

"What did you do?"

What did he do? He could hardly tell her the literal truth. "I crawled off behind a car and vanished from sight, bobbing up in the East River, naked … as usual." For a man who hated to lie and valued transparency, he was shackled to dishonesty. It was the only way to walk through the centuries with a minimum of damage. Depending on how one defined one's terms.

"I, uh … I was torn," he said truthfully. "I needed to continue to apply pressure to the man's wound, but I was also in need of medical attention."

"So you admit that, at least." Jo saluted him with her whiskey tumbler and let him continue.

"I … ah … I finally elected to go into the emergency room rather than wait for someone to wander by. But once I got in there, of course, they wanted to tend to me." Dismayed surprise had crept into his voice.

"Yeah, imagine that," Jo said dryly.

Henry bit his lip to hide a grin. "It took me several minutes to get out the information that there was another wounded man outside. Finally someone was dispatched to bring him in."

"Well? What happened to him?"

Henry shook his head. "I … don't know. I was too ashamed of myself to ask."

"Ashamed? Of what?"

"Jo, I violated my oath. I selfishly put my own needs above my patient's. 'I will take care that they suffer no hurt or damage,' it says. I walked away from a man bleeding to death."

"Okay. First of all, he wasn't your patient; second, and possibly more importantly … so were you!"

Henry sighed. He swallowed the remainder of the brandy in one gulp, shaking his head when Jo stood and held the bottle out to him.

"At any rate." Henry stopped and cleared his throat. "I, uh, I thought it … helpful … to step away from practicing medicine for a time." He looked up, relief bathing his features as he realized he knew how to tie up all these loose ends. "That's when I became a gravedigger."

Jo rolled her eyes. "A little extreme, don't you think?"

"Oh, maybe," Henry agreed, magnanimous now that he'd spotted the end of the tunnel.

"And when you returned…"

Henry shrugged. "I'd always had a great deal of reverence for pathology. And a thirst for solving mysteries, finding answers… maybe I feel as though it's a way to help bring about at least a little justice."

Jo regarded him. "You still feel guilty."

Henry shrugged again. "That may never go away. But I feel more in tune with my oath at the autopsy table – curiously enough." He stood. "I must go. Abe will be worried."

"Take a cab," Jo urged. "Don't try to walk. It's too dark, too late, and too cold." And neither of them was completely sober.

"I will."

Jo opened the door. "That's the most you've ever told me about yourself," she said thoughtfully. "Thank you. And… thanks for helping me … begin to sort through my feelings about Sean's death." She swallowed hard.

Henry looked her in the eyes. "You're welcome." He gave her a quick hug, over before she registered that it was happening, then descended the steps and flagged a taxi. Jo stood in her doorway and watched it pull away.


End file.
